CHAPTER XIII
Close Quarters
Human affairs are peculiarly dependent on the weather. It is not easy to lay down a law governing this postulate, which, indeed, may be scoffed at by the superficial reasoner, and the progression from cause to effect is often obscured by contradictory facts. For instance, a fine summer means a good harvest, much traveling, the prolongation of holiday periods, a free circulation of money, and the consequent enhanced prosperity and happiness of millions of men and women. But there are more suicides in June and July than in December and January. On the one hand, fine weather improves humanity's lot; on the other, it depresses the individual.
Let the logician explain these curiously divergent issues as he may; there can be no question that the quality of the night which closed a day eventful beyond any other in the annals of Roxton exercised a remarkable influence on the lives of five people. It was a perfect night in June. There was no moon; the stars shone dimly through a slight haze; but the sun had set late and would rise early, and his complete disappearance followed so small a chord of the diurnal circle that his light was never wholly absent. A gentle westerly breeze was so zephyr-like that it hardly stirred the leaves of the trees, but it wafted the scent of flowers and meadow land into open windows, and was grateful alike to the just and the unjust.
Thus to romantic minds it was redolent of romance; and as Sylvia Manning's room faced south and John Trenholme's faced north, and lay nearly opposite each other, though separated by a rolling mile of park, woodland, tillage and pasture, it is not altogether incredible that those two, gazing out at the same hour, should bridge the void with the eyes of the soul.
It was a night, too, that invited to the open.
In some favored lands, where the almanac is an infallible Clerk of the Weather, fine nights succeed each other with the monotonous regularity of kings in an Amurath dynasty. But the British climate, a slave to no such ordered sequence, scatters or withholds these magic hours almost impartially throughout the seasons, so that June may demand overcoats and umbrellas, and October invite Summer raiment.
Hence this superb Summer's night found certain folk in Roxton disinclined to forego its enchantments. Trenholme, trying to persuade himself that his brooding gaze rested on the Elizabethan roofs and gables rising above the trees because of some rarely spiritual quality in the atmosphere, suddenly awoke to the fact that the hour was eleven.
Some men issued from the bar parlor and "snug" beneath, and there were sounds of bolts being shot home and keys turned in recognition of the curfew imposed by the licensing laws. Then the artistic temperament arose in revolt. Chafing already against the narrow confines of the best room the White Horse Inn could provide, it burst all bounds when a tired potman attempted unconsciously to lock it in.
Grabbing a pipe and tobacco pouch, Trenholme ran downstairs, meeting the potman in the passage.
"Get me a key, Bill," he said. "I simply can't endure the notion of bed just yet, so I'm off for a stroll. I don't want to keep any one waiting up, and I suppose I can have a key of sorts."
Now it happened that the proprietor of the inn was absent at a race meeting, and Eliza was in charge. Trenholme's request was passed on to her, and a key was forthcoming.
Hatless, pipe in mouth, and hands in pockets, Trenholme sauntered into the village street. Romance was either a dull jade or growing old and sedate in Roxton. Nearly every house was in darkness, and more than one dog barked because of a passing footstep.
About half past eleven, Sylvia Manning, sitting in melancholy near her window after an hour of musing, heard a light tap on the door.
"Come in," she said, recognizing the reason of this late intrusion. An elderly woman entered. She was an attendant charged with special care of Mrs. Fenley. A trained nurse would have refused to adopt the lenient treatment of the patient enjoined by the late head of the family, so this woman was engaged because she was honest, faithful, rather stupid and obeyed orders.
"She has quieted down now, miss, and is fast asleep," she said in a low tone. "You may feel sure she won't wake before six or seven. She never does."
The "she" of this message was Mrs. Fenley. Rural England does not encourage unnecessary courtesy nor harbor such foreign intruders as "madam." The reiterated pronoun grated on Sylvia; she was disinclined for further talk.
"Thank you, Parker," she said. "I am glad to know that. Good night."
But Parker had something to say, and this was a favorable opportunity.
"She's been awful bad today, miss. It can't go on."
"That is hardly surprising, taking into account the shock Mrs. Fenley received this morning."
"That's what I have in me mind, miss. She's changed."
"How changed? You need not close the door. Never mind the light. It is hardly dark when the eyes become used to the gloom."
Parker drew nearer. Obeying the instincts of her class, she assumed a confidential tone.
"Well, miss, you know why you went out?"
"Yes," said Sylvia rather curtly. She had left the invalid when the use of a hypodermic syringe became essential if an imminent outburst of hysteria was to be prevented. The girl had no power to interfere, and was too young and inexperienced to make an effective protest; but she was convinced that to encourage a vice was not the best method of treating it. More than once she had spoken of the matter to Mortimer Fenley; but he merely said that he had tried every known means to cure his wife, short of immuring her in an asylum, and had failed. "She is happy in a sort of a way," he would add, with a certain softening of voice and manner. "Let her continue so." Thus a minor tragedy was drifting to its close when Fenley himself was so rudely robbed of life.
"As a rule, miss," went on the attendant, "she soon settles after a dose, but this time she seemed to pass into a sort of a trance. Gen'rally her words are broken-like an' wild, an' I pays no heed to 'em; but tonight she talked wonderful clear, all about India at first, an' of a band playin', with sogers marchin' past. Then she spoke about some people called coolies. There was a lot about them, in lines an' tea gardens. An' she seemed to be speakin' to another Mrs. Fenley."
The woman's voice sank to an awe-stricken whisper, and Sylvia shivered somewhat in sympathy. "Another Mrs. Fenley!" It was common knowledge in the household that Fenley had married a second time, but the belief was settled that the first wife was dead; Parker, by an unrehearsed dramatic touch, conveyed the notion that the unhappy creature in a neighboring room had been conversing with a ghost.
Somewhat shaken and perturbed, Sylvia wished more than ever to be alone, so she brought her informant back to the matter in hand.
"I don't see that Mrs. Fenley's rambling utterances give rise to any fear of immediate collapse," she said, striving to speak composedly.
"No, miss. That isn't it at all. I was just tellin' you what happened. There was a lot more. She might ha' been givin' the story of her life. But – please forgive me, miss, for what I'm goin' to say. I think some one ought to know – I do, reelly – an' you're the only one I dare tell it to."
"Oh, what is it?"
The cry was wrung from the girl's heart. She had borne a good deal that day, and feared some sinister revelation now.
"She remembered that poor Mr. Fenley was dead, but didn't appear so greatly upset. She was more puzzled-like – kep' on mutterin': 'Who did it? Who could have the cool darin' to shoot him dead in broad daylight, at his own door, before his servants?' She was sort of forcin' herself to think, to find out, just as if it was a riddle, an' the right answer was on the tip of her tongue. An' then, all at once, she gev a queer little laugh. 'Why, of course, it was Hilton,' she said."
Sylvia, relieved and vastly indignant, rose impetuously.
"Why do you trouble to bring such nonsense to my ears?" she cried.
But Parker was stolid and dogged.
"I had to tell some one," she vowed, determined to put herself straight with one of her own sex. "I know her ways. If that's in her mind she'll be shoutin' it out to every maid who comes near her tomorrow; an' I reelly thought, miss, it was wise to tell you tonight, because such a thing would soon cause a scandal, an' it should be stopped."
"Perhaps you are right, and I ought to be obliged to you for being so considerate. But no one would pay heed to my aunt's ravings. Every person in the house knows that the statement is absurd. Mr. Hilton was in his room. I myself saw him go upstairs after exchanging a few words with his father in the hall, and he came down again instantly when Harris ran to fetch him."
"I understand that, miss, an' I'm not so silly as to think there is any sense in her blamin' Mr. Hilton. But it made my flesh creep to hear all the rest so clear an' straightforward, an' then that she should say: 'Hilton did it, the black beast. He always hated Bob an' me, because we were white, an' the jungle strain has come out at last.' Oh, it was somethink dreadful to hear her laughin' at her cleverness. I – "
"Please, please, don't repeat any more of these horrible things," cried the girl, for the strain was becoming unbearable.
"I agree with you, miss. They aren't fit to be spoke of; an' I say, with all due respec', that they shouldn't be allowed to leak out. You know what young maid servants are like. They're bound to chatter. My idee is that another nurse should be engaged tomorrow, a woman old enough to hold her tongue an' mind her own business; then the two of us can take turns at duty, so as to keep them housemaids out of the way altogether."
"Yes, I'm sure you are right. I'll speak to Mr. Hilton in the morning. Thank you, Parker. I see now that you meant well, and I'm sorry if I spoke sharply."
"I'm not surprised, miss. It was not a pleasant thing to have to say, nor for you to hear, but duty is duty. Good night, miss, I hope you'll sleep well."
Sleep! Parker should not have conjured up a new apparition if Sylvia were to seek the solace of untroubled rest. At present the girl felt that she had never before been so distressfully awake. Splendidly vital in mind and body as she was, she almost yielded now to a morbid horror of her environment. Generations of men and women had lived and died in that ancient house, and tonight dim shapes seemed to throng its chambers and corridors. Physically fearless, she owned to a feminine dread of the unknown. It would be a relief to get away from this abode of grief and mystery. The fantastic dreaming of the unhappy creature crooning memories of a past life and a lost husband had unnerved her. She resolved to seek the fresh air, and wander through gardens and park until the fever in her mind had abated.
Now a rule of the house ordained that all doors should be locked and lower windows latched at midnight. A night watchman made certain rounds each hour, pressing a key into indicating-clocks at various points to show that he had been alert. Mortimer Fenley had been afraid of fire; there was so much old woodwork in the building that it would burn readily, and a short circuit in the electrical installation was always possible, though every device had been adopted to render it not only improbable but harmless. After midnight the door bells and others communicated with a switchboard in the watchman's room; and a burglary alarm, which the man adjusted during his first round, rang there continuously if disturbed.
Sylvia, leaving the door of her bedroom ajar, went to the servants' quarters by a back staircase. There she found MacBain, the watchman, eating his supper.
"I don't feel as though I could sleep," she explained, "so I am going out into the park for a while. I'll unlatch one of the drawing-room windows and disconnect the alarm; and when I come in again I'll tell you."
"Very well, miss," said MacBain. "It's a fine night, and you'll take no harm."
"I'm not afraid of rabbits, if that is what you mean," she said lightly, for the very sound of the man's voice had dispelled vapors.
"Oh, there's more than rabbits in the park tonight, miss. Two policemen are stationed in the Quarry Wood."
"Why?" she said, with some surprise.
"They don't know themselves, miss. The Inspector ordered it. I met them coming on duty at ten o'clock. They'll be relieved at four. They have instructions to allow no one to enter the wood. That's all they know."
"If I go there, then, shall I be locked up?"
"Not so bad as that, miss," smiled MacBain. "But I'd keep away from it if I was you. 'Let sleeping dogs lie' is a good motto."
"But these are not sleeping dogs. They're wide-awake policemen."
"Mebbe, miss. They have a soft job, I'm thinking. Of course – "
The man checked himself, but Sylvia guessed what was passing in his mind.
"You were going to say that the wretch who killed my uncle hid in that wood?" she prompted him.
"Yes, miss, I was."
"He is not there now. He must have run away while we were too terrified to take any steps to capture him. Who in the world could have wished to kill Mr. Fenley?"
"Ah, miss, there's no knowing. Those you'd least suspect are often the worst."
MacBain shook his head over this cryptic remark; he glanced at a clock. It was five minutes to twelve.
"It's rather late, miss," he hinted. Sylvia agreed with him, but she was young enough to be headstrong.
"I sha'n't remain out very long," she said. "I ought to feel tired, but I don't; and I hope the fresh air will make me sleepy."
To reach the drawing-room, she had to cross the hall. Its parquet floor creaked under her rapid tread. A single lamp among a cluster in the ceiling burned there all night, and she could not help giving one quick look at the oaken settle which stood under the cross gallery; she was glad when the drawing-room door closed behind her.
She had no difficulty with the window, but the outer shutters creaked when she opened them. Then she passed on to the first of the Italian terraces, and stood there irresolutely a few minutes, gazing alternately at the sky and the black masses of the trees. At first she was a trifle nervous. The air was so still, the park so solemn in its utter quietude, that the sense of adventure was absent, and the funeral silence that prevailed was almost oppressive.
Half inclined to go back, woman-like she went forward. Then the sweet, clinging scent of a rose bed drew her like a magnet. She descended a flight of steps and gained the second terrace. She thought of Trenholme and the picture, and the impulse to stroll as far as the lake seized her irresistibly. Why not! The grass was short, and the dew would not be heavy. Even if she wetted her feet, what did it matter, as she would undress promptly on returning to her room? Besides, she had never seen the statue on just such a night, though she had often visited it by moonlight.
La Rochefoucauld is responsible for the oft quoted epigram that the woman who hesitates is lost, and Sylvia had certainly hesitated. At any rate, after a brief debate in which the arguments were distinctly one-sided, she resolved that she might as well have an object in view as stroll aimlessly in any other direction; so, gathering her skirts to keep them dry, she set off across the park.
She might have been halfway to the lake when a man emerged from the same window of the drawing-room, ran to the terrace steps, stumbled down them so awkwardly that he nearly fell, and swore at his own clumsiness in so doing. He negotiated the next flight more carefully, but quickened his pace again into a run when he reached the open. The girl's figure was hardly visible, but he knew she was there, and the distance between pursued and pursuer soon lessened.
Sylvia, wholly unaware of being followed, did not hurry; but she was constitutionally incapable of loitering, and moved over the rustling grass with a swiftness that brought her to the edge of the lake while the second inmate of The Towers abroad that night was yet a couple of hundred yards distant.
In the dim light the statue assumed a lifelike semblance that was at once startling and wonderful. Color flies with the sun, and the white marble did not depend now on tint alone to differentiate it from flesh and blood. Seen thus indistinctly, it might almost be a graceful and nearly nude woman standing there, and some display of will power on the girl's part was called for before she approached nearer and stifled the first breath of apprehension. Then, delighted by the vague beauty of the scene, with senses soothed by the soft plash of the cascade, she decided to walk around the lake to the spot where Trenholme must have been hidden when he painted that astonishingly vivid picture. Its bold treatment and simplicity of note rendered it an easy subject to carry in the mind's eye, and Sylvia thought it would be rather nice to conjure up the same effect in the prevailing conditions of semi-darkness and mystery. She need not risk tearing her dress among the briers which clung to the hillside. Knowing every inch of the ground, she could follow the shore of the lake until nearly opposite the statue, and then climb a few feet among the bushes at a point where a zigzag path, seldom used and nearly obliterated by undergrowth, led to the clump of cedars.
She was still speeding along the farther bank when a man's form loomed in sight in the park, and her heart throbbed tumultuously with a new and real terror. Who could it be? Had some one seen her leaving the house? That was the explanation she hoped for at first, but her breath came in sharp gusts and her breast heaved when she remembered how one deadly intruder at least had broken into that quiet haven during the early hours of the past day.
Whoever the oncomer might prove to be, he was losing no time, and he was yet some twenty yards or more away from the statue – itself separated from Sylvia by about the same width of water – when she recognized, with a sigh of relief, the somewhat cumbrous form and grampus-like puffing of Robert Fenley.
Evidently he was rather blear-eyed, since he seemed to mistake the white marble Aphrodite for a girl in a black dress; or perhaps he assumed that Sylvia was there, and thought he would see her at any moment.
"I say, Sylvia!" he cried. "I say, old girl, what the deuce are you doin' – in the park – at this time o' night?"
The words were clear enough, but there was a suspicious thickness in the voice. Robert had been drinking, and Sylvia had learned already to abhor and shun a man under the influence of intoxicants more than anything else in the wide world. She did not fear her "cousin." For years she had tolerated him, and that day she had come to dislike him actively, but she had not the least intention of entering into an explanation of her actions with him at that hour and under existing circumstances. She had recovered from her sudden fright, and was merely annoyed now, and bent her wits to the combined problems of escape and regaining the house unseen.
Remembering that her white face and hands might reveal her whereabouts she turned, bent and crept up the slope until a bush afforded welcome concealment. Some thorns scratched her ankles, but she gave no heed to such trivial mishaps. A rabbit jumped out from under her feet, and it cost something of an effort to repress a slight scream; but – to her credit be it said – she set her lips tightly, and was almost amused by the game of hide and seek thus unexpectedly thrust on her.
Meanwhile Robert had reached the little promontory on which the statue was poised, and no Sylvia was in sight.
"Sylvia!" he cried again. "Where are you? No use hidin', because I know you're here! Dash it all, if you wanted a bit of a stroll why didn't you send for me? You knew I'd come like a shot – eh, what?"
He listened and peered, but might as well have been deaf and blind for aught he could distinguish of the girl he sought.
Then he laughed; and a peculiar quality in that chuckle of mirth struck a new note of anxiety, even of fear, in Sylvia's laboring heart.
"So you won't be good!" he guffawed thickly. "Playin' Puss in the Corner, I suppose? Very well, I give you fair warnin'. I mean to catch you, an' when I do I'll claim forfeit… I don't mind. Fact is, I like it. It's rather fun chasin' one's best girl in the dark… Dashed if it isn't better'n a bit out of a French farce… Puss! Puss!.. I see you… Hidin' there among the bushy bushes… Gad! How's that for a test after a big night? Bushy bushes! I must not forget that. Try it on one of the b-boys… Now, come out of it!.. Naughty puss! I'll get you in a tick, see if I don't!"
He was keeping to the track Sylvia herself had taken, since the lie of the land was familiar to him as to her. Talking to himself, cackling at his own flashes of wit, halting after each few paces to search the immediate neighborhood and detect any guiding sound, he was now on the same side of the lake as the girl, and coming perilously near. At each step, apparently, he found the growing obscurity more tantalizing. He still continued calling aloud: "Sylvia! Sylvia, I say! Chuck it, can't you? You must give in, you know. I'll be grabbin' you in a minute." There were not lacking muttered ejaculations, which showed that he was losing his temper.
Once he swore so emphatically that she thought he was acknowledging himself beaten; but some glimmering notion that she was crouching almost within reach, and would have the laugh of him in the morning, flogged him to fresh endeavor. Now he was within ten yards, eight, five! In another few seconds his hand might touch her, and she quivered at the thought. If concealment could not save her she must seek refuge in flight, since therein lay a sure means of escape. Not daring to delay, she tried to stand upright, but felt a pull on her dress as if a hand were detaining her. It was only a brier, insidiously entangled in a fold of her skirt; but she was rather excited now, and there was little to be gained by excess of caution, for any rapid movement must betray her. Stooping, she caught the thorn-laden branch and tore it out of the soft material.
Fenley heard the ripping sound instantly.
"Ha! There you are, my beauty! Got you this time!" he cried, and plunged forward.
Sylvia sprang from her hiding-place like a frightened fawn and valiantly essayed the steep embankment. Therein she erred. She would have succeeded in evading her pursuer had she leaped down to the open strip of turf close to the water, dodging him before he realized what was happening. As it was, the briers spread a hundred cruel claws against her; with each upward step she encountered greater resistance; desperation only added to her panic, and she struggled frenziedly.
The man, unhampered by garments such as clogged each inch of Sylvia's path, pushed on with renewed ardor. He no longer spoke, for his hearing alone could help him now, the girl's black-robed form being utterly merged in the dense shadow cast by brushwood and cedars. He, however, was silhouetted against the luminous gray of the park, and Sylvia, casting a frantic glance over her shoulder, saw him distinctly. In her distress she fancied she could feel his hot breath on her neck; and when some unusually venomous branch clutched her across the knees, and rendered farther movement impossible until her dress was extricated, she wailed aloud in anger and dismay.
"How dare you!" she cried, and her voice was tremulous and broken. "I warn you that if you persist in following me I shall strike you!"
"Will you, by Jove!" cried Robert elatedly. "I'd risk more than that, my dear! A kiss for every blow! Only fair, you know! Eh, what!"
On he came. He was so near that in one active bound he would be upon her, but he advanced warily, with hands outstretched.
"Oh, what shall I do!" she sobbed. "Go back, you brute! I – I hate you. There are policemen in the wood. I'll scream for help!"
"No need, Miss Manning," said a calm voice which seemed to come from the circumambient air. "Don't cry out or be alarmed, no matter what happens!"
A hand, not Robert Fenley's caught her shoulder in a reassuring grip. A tall figure brushed by, and she heard a curious sound that had a certain smack in it – a hard smack, combined with a thudding effect, as if some one had smitten a pillow with a fist. A fist it was assuredly, and a hard one; but it smote no pillow. With a gurgling cough, Robert Fenley toppled headlong to the edge of the lake, and lay there probably some minutes, for the man who had hit him knew how and where to strike.
Sylvia did not scream. She had recognized Trenholme's voice, but she felt absurdly like fainting. Perhaps she swayed slightly, and her rescuer was aware of it, for he gathered her up in his arms as he might carry a scared child, nor did he set her on her feet when they were clear of the trees and in the open park.
"You are quite safe now," he said soothingly. "You are greatly upset, of course, and you need a minute or two to pull yourself together; but no one will hurt you while I am here. When you feel able to speak, you'll tell me where to take you, and I'll be your escort."
"I can speak now, thank you," said Sylvia, with a composure that was somewhat remarkable. "Please put me down!"
He obeyed, but she imagined he gave her a silent hug before his clasp relaxed. Even then his left hand still rested on her shoulder in a protective way.